The present invention relates to an optical connector cleaning tool which is used to clean the coupling end face of an optical connector, and an optical connector end face observation system including this optical connector cleaning tool.
An optical connector 200 (see FIGS. 31A and 31B) is used to simply and precisely couple optical fibers in optical communication. As shown in FIGS. 31A and 31B, the optical connector 200 includes plugs 201 and adaptors 202. As shown in FIG. 31B, the optical connector 200 is used in a state in which the plugs 201 oppose each other with the adaptors 202 being interposed between them. If contamination such as oil or dust adheres to a coupling end face (a connecting end face of an optical fiber) 203 of the plug 201 of the optical connector 200 of this kind, a loss or reflection of optical signal on the coupling end face increases, and this may pose a problem in transmission of an optical signal. Accordingly, the coupling end face 203 must be clean, and is in many cases cleaned by wiping using an optical connector cleaning tool.
A conventional optical connector cleaning tool is described in, e.g., WO2009/119437 (literature 1). In this optical connector cleaning tool disclosed in literature 1, a cleaning thread is pressed against the coupling end face and wound while being rotated.
After cleaning an optical connector by using this cleaning tool, a cleaning worker removes the cleaning tool from the optical connector, connects an observation tool, and checks the cleaning state of the coupling end face by using this observation tool. If contamination remains on the coupling end face, the worker removes the observation tool from the optical connector, connects the cleaning tool, and performs cleaning again.
The conventional optical connector cleaning tool requires the use of the observation tool as a separate unit of the cleaning tool before or after cleaning, and this complicates the cleaning work. Also, contamination sometimes adheres to the once cleaned end face when using the observation tool, and this causes waste in work.